Plenty more boring posts to come!
The consensus of the comments on the post from yesterday speaks volumes. It will be business as usual here at A Dime at a Time. I think Hubs was a tad surprised at how many of us do enjoy reading and talking about numbers! His loss, our gain. Now maybe he will leave us me alone. I guess it is a good thing he doesn’t comment, or at least not on the blog that is! Lol.
So then, how about some more numbers? The one thing I haven’t spent a lot of time focusing on is our liquid savings. Since the term “liquid savings” can mean different things to different people, I view this as money we have readily available in our bank accounts, NOT including our primary checking. I don’t factor what we have in our checking as that money is there to pay the bills. While we do keep a small cushion in our checking account, I additionally do not factor that in as liquid savings.
Before delving into what we actually have, I’d like to share an article I found on the subject. Here is the link: Liquid Savings of working households ages 50-64. While I would never go by what just one article says, it did give me some food for thought regarding the whole liquid savings/emergency funds topic.
Before Hub’s unexpected surgery we, of course, did have money in liquid savings. I wish I could say as I knew exactly how much we had, but I honestly don’t! Yes, it is one of those “head hung in shame” realizations. The reason being is that along with our regular savings account (which before Oct we rarely touched) we also have what I refer to as a “slush fund.” The slush fund is money we keep in our local credit union. It is an account I use mostly for cashing paper checks. Thankfully Hubs payroll checks are direct deposit. Neither my part-time job or my seasonal job offer that option, so local credit union it is.
Since we primarily use cash for our day-to-day spending, this slush fund has worked out well. Depending on how much my check is and also what we have budgeted, this account can, however, fluctuate. I do my best to only keep what cash we need with the remainder going into our account. Thankfully, except for a couple of times, there has been enough to save a little extra. Adding a few dollars here and there certainly adds up!
While this slush fund is working out well, I realize that I need to do a much better job at keeping track of both our regular savings and this slush account as these are both, in fact, liquid savings. I think in doing so, it will also serve as encouragement to save more. We are currently trying to beef up our savings not only for potential emergencies but also for a roof repair/replacement late next Spring.
As for the numbers (pathetic as they are) here they are: As of today, we have $410.24 in our slush account and $925.25 in our regular savings. While not a lot, this is what remains from weathering the storm last month. It also does fall within Dave Ramsey’s recommended baby emergency fund of $1,000, although we decided from the get-go that we were not comfortable with such a low amount. In some small way having over the recommended amount for a baby emergency fund does somehow make me feel a smidge better.
Now it’s time to get personal…you had to know that was coming! For those of you who feel comfortable sharing, how much do you keep in liquid savings? If you aren’t quite where you want to be, what is your goal? Keep in mind that A Dime at a Time is a judgment-free zone. Polite, constructive criticism is always welcome, bashing is not. We are all at different places on our journey, and that is perfectly okay!
I keep a slush fund also, it is an extra thousand I keep in the checking acct for small emergencies, like smaller car repairs. It is meant to have $$ going in and out. I got the idea from Michelle Singletary, the financial columnist for the Washington Post. I tallied up our liquid cash recently, and we have recovered from when we bought the new van for cash earlier in the year. From the article you linked to, we are in the top 40% of what was referenced in the article. I know we are blessed, but we have also worked hard and done without to get there. I know you will get there also, if you will just keep plugging away and don’t get discouraged, Lucy. It took us awhile to be in the position we are in. I am still pulling for you and your Hubs. <3
Good for you, Chris! Your hard work and sacrifices paid off! We will keep plugging away as we didn’t put ourselves into this hole overnight. It will take time and effort to dig our way out, but all in good time, we will! I appreciate your encouraging words.
My liquid savings varies. It goes up when I can keep DH’s mitts off of it! Right now I have $950 in my various Capital One savings accounts and an extra $2000 sitting in my checking. While the CapOne savings stays at what it’s supposed to be at any given time, my extra in checking can vary from $500 to $5000. We had over $5000 just before we had our well dug and after I paid for that was down to a few hundred until I could add more back the next payday. Now we are back up to $2000. We’ve have some non-regular expenses the past couple of months. $560 for my new tires, $118 for recent vet visit, $125 fee to register well with the State,
OneFamily recently posted…Vet visit
You have had some big hits to your accounts. The nice thing is that you are cash flowing all these things which will save you when you are ready to build.
We have 3 sets of checking/savings: his, hers and rental property. (the his/hers are out of sheer laziness: we married and it was a pain to change things over, so we left it) All 3 are set up the same: 1 months worth of expenses in the checking account and $10k in the savings account (EFs). As money comes in, anything over the 1-month buffer is swept into investment accounts. Since there is a full month’s worth of expenses in there, it never goes negative – money comes in before it’s depleted, or if a payment is messed up or completely missed, we have a month to fix it, or the EF is there to pull from too. If there is a larger expense coming up, we just don’t sweep. Easy peasy 🙂
I can’t wait until we are in a similar position of having more cash on hand. I really love the idea of being a month ahead.
I have 2 accounts aside from checking
1st that I consider savings and it only has 187.00 , thanks to DH being home for so long
2nd is for irregular expenses in which I deposit 400/mo and it covers. insurance, car tags, vet bills, etc – it has 2500.00
Thankfully I haven’t had to touch this account but I also haven’t been able to add to it either
Checking only holds what the bills are with maybe 50.00 extra for oopsies
You’ve had a rough go of it lately with your DH being off work. Good for you for still having savings! Many others would be reaching for a credit card or who-knows-what to keep afloat. Oopsies is precisely why I do keep extra in our checking!
I love the numbers posts! I have $11,000 for an EF in my checking account, $5,000 EF in a savings account, $4,700 in a savings account (Set aside for a new car- but also a back up EF),about $400 for pet expenses, etc. I think I will stop there because I just realized I have an embarrassing amount of sinking funds that double as emergency funds!
I want to be like you! Nothing embarrassing about having extra cash available!